Jo Ann Davis Remembered

NEWPORT NEWS — Jo Ann Davis' life played out in still photographs Wednesday night as hundreds of mourners traveled to the Peninsula to console her family and celebrate her life.

Davis, Virginia's first female Republican in Congress and a member of the House of Representatives since 2001, died Saturday after a two-year bout with breast cancer.

But on Wednesday the self-described country gal was back in living color when a family album of candid photos scrolled across a screen at the front of the World Worship Outreach Center in Newport News.

There was a grainy shot of Davis and her husband, Chuck, huddled in front of a Christmas tree as their young sons unwrapped gifts. There was Davis in a mess tent surrounded by troops in desert camouflage. There was Davis hugging her son at a backyard barbecue. There was Davis holding the gavel at the podium of the House of Representatives. And everywhere she was smiling.

Mourners started lining up outside of the memorial a full 90-minutes before the service began, and the line stretched out the back door of the church into the parking lot. For hours folks in jeans and tennis shoes mingled about with political bigwigs in three-piece suits and troops in full dress uniforms, all waiting to for a chance to talk to Chuck Davis, their sons Charlie and Christopher and other family members.

David Born met Jo Ann Davis in 1969, when he and Chuck were classmates and close friends in junior high school. Born said that the term modest doesn't do justice to Davis' early life as the daughter of a Hampton city bus driver.

"She was poor, but she was one of the smartest girls I ever met in my life," Born said. "Anything you told her, you better be telling the truth because her mind kept that stuff."

Anyone who knew Davis could count on her support, Born said, which makes her death such a blow to everyone in the district. The 1st District stretches from Newport News to Prince William County.

"It's a huge, huge loss," Born said.

Kenny Taylor got to know Jo Ann Davis while he and Chuck Davis fought fires in Hampton. Years later, it was Jo Ann Davis the Realtor who helped the Taylor family find the house in Yorktown they still call home.

"It was amazing watching her grow," Taylor said. "But she never changed who she was."

Taylor said Davis was a strong woman with a unique, tenacious drive to help other people.

"It wasn't the type of drive where you trample all over people to get to where you're going," Taylor said. "It was just incredible."

In a district with thick military roots and a wealth of veterans, Davis was a tireless advocate for locals who served in the armed forces, according to Eulan Chism, a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

"She'd do anything she could do for veterans, that's for sure," said Chism of Williamsburg. *

DETAILS ABOUT U.S. REP. JO ANN DAVIS' FUNERAL

1 p.m. today at Lighthouse Worship Center in Gloucester, 4299 George Washington Highway. The service is open to the public.

ONLINE EXTRA

View a photo gallery of the Jo Ann Davis memorial in Newport News at dailypress.com/davismemorial.